NSA statement does not deny 'spying' on members of Congress

• Agency responds to questions from Senator Bernie Sanders
• Statement cites 'same privacy protections as all US persons'

• Spencer Ackerman in Washington and Martin Pengelly in New York
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• theguardian.com, Saturday 4 January 2014 15.31 EST

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Photograph: Alison Redlich/AP

The National Security Agency on Saturday released a statement in answer to questions from a senator about whether it “has spied, or is … currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials”, in which it did not deny collecting communications from legislators of the US Congress to whom it says it is accountable.
In a letter dated 3 January, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont defined “spying” as “gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business”.
The agency has been at the centre of political controversy since a former contractor, Edward Snowden, released thousands of documents on its activities to media outlets including the Guardian.
In its statement, which comes as the NSA gears up for a make-or-break legislative battle over the scope of its surveillance powers, the agency pointed to “privacy protections” which it says it keeps on all Americans' phone records.

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